Title: Distributed multi-objective predictive control for connected electric vehicles

Authors: Yanhong Wu; Zhaofeng Gao; Xiulan Song; Ji Li; Quan Zhou; Hongming Xu

Addresses: School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK; School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China ' School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK ' School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK ' School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK ' School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK ' School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

Abstract: This paper proposes a distributed multi-objective predictive control (DMPC) strategy to balance the conflicts among driving safety, comfort and economy of vehicular platoon. A vehicular platoon model is established to describe the characteristics of connected electric vehicles. Then, a distributed model predictive controller is developed for vehicular platoon. To reduce the multi-objective conflicts, a weighted-sum-based optimisation method is designed and inserted into the controller. Furthermore, the stability and the iterative feasibility of the proposed strategy is proven. Finally, several experiments are carried out on a self-developed co-Simulink platform with the IPG-Carmaker. Compared with the centralised multi-objective predictive control method, the proposed DMPC strategy distributed multi-objective predictive control method exhibits a 7.69% enhancement in driving safety, a 4.64% improvement in driving comfort and 3.70% advancement in driving economy for platoon.

Keywords: vehicular platoon; multi-objective conflicts; predictive control; IPG-Carmaker.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPT.2025.148447

International Journal of Powertrains, 2025 Vol.14 No.2, pp.97 - 116

Received: 08 Feb 2024
Accepted: 10 May 2024

Published online: 05 Sep 2025 *

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